


"And what rough beast..."

by gloriousthorn



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), Wasteland Baby - Hozier (Album)
Genre: Apocalypse, Epic Poetry, F/M, Poetry, narrative poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 06:49:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18805903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriousthorn/pseuds/gloriousthorn
Summary: I had a dream about...not *the* end of *the* world, let's say, but maybe an end of a world.  I built a story around it in poetic form.  This is...that.(Also, you're probably here because you have read my Hozier-adjacent content?  This is...probably less so than my other work, but then again, so many of us are or have become apocalypse enthusiasts because of WB!, so maybe you'll still enjoy it.)





	1. I.

Grandmother’s house lay in the path of the flames.  
The world had been burning for weeks by then  
with nothing to be done: the fire  
swallowed the air, then the water.  
I’d eaten the last almond, the last dried apple  
last night; drunk the last of the late wine  
in the acrid sunset, and thought to lie down and die,  
hoping the smoke would take me  
before I felt the singing of flesh and hair.

When the cities burned first, they thought:  
Surely the rivers will protect us.  
Surely our goodness and godliness will protect us.


	2. II.

They were wrong; the signs were everywhere,  
so many and all unsparing.  
The trees refused to clothe themselves  
in leaves; the bees and cows left  
as if for an ark; strawberry blossoms withered,  
did not sprout their hard yellow fruits.  
Heat gathered without humidity.  
Grandmother died at ninety, hands folded on her chest.

The priest who read the Mass could hardly speak.  
I thought of the words he did say as I lay down:  
She was the last, he said. God help us now.


	3. III.

I woke on high. Through an open door I saw  
the world still burning below me, felt  
a cold wind light across my chest.  
(I did not die. I breathed and my breasts lifted.  
The moon still hung, a silver musket ball in the sky.)   
But Grandmother’s house was gone; I lay  
in a room empty but for the wide bed,  
walls forsaken even by their paint.

And the moon or the wind or the fire spoke to me:   
_Fear not, for behold I bring you tidings of great joy._  
 _Fear not, for blessed are you among women._


	4. IV.

I said: I meant to die—   
_Hush,_ said the moon or the wind or the fire.   
_I know. But your time has not yet come._   
For what do I live in this world? I asked—   
everything and everyone I loved is gone.   
I’ll give myself back to the flames  
and in my next life as cinder feed what grows back.   
I rose to go and the moon or the wind or the fire

held me there in ash-rose velvet ribbons,   
said: _Where will you go? Look below—_  
 _it burns also without you. Hear me, first._


	5. V.

I protested: I am not young nor unafraid.   
I am not a virgin to bear a new Earth.   
I am not a mother and I am not blessed.  
Fast the voice held me there and said:   
_I am a seed-bed and I know every climate._  
 _True: I lit the fire, stoked and kindled it._  
 _Your grandmother, who knew my name, called on me,_  
 _and asked: for the sake of one righteous woman_

_would you burn the world to ash?_   
_I searched your heart and found there_   
_a vein of loam to feed the soil of a new world._


	6. VI.

_Come. Follow._ The moon or the wind or the fire  
set me loose. _I am the shadow in the doorway._   
And I was a woman in the halls of a once-great house.  
At every turn was ruin—carpet torn,  
mirrors shattered, flowers withered—but  
beyond it the good bones of a home once loved.   
_Stay,_ the shadow said: _on high in a home I will make new_  
 _for a new world and its mother and her lover, if she’ll have me._

Somewhere, Grandmother’s house lay in ashes.  
I stood at the top of the stairs. I said: Show yourself,   
and make me new. It said: _Thy will be done._


	7. VII.

I had known men but this was no man.  
He had the skin of a birch tree,  
white but not without darkness  
along the limbs and veins; he said,  
_Do you want to know how I did it?_ and he held  
the flame in his hand, and it did not burn him,  
the shadow and the moon, the wind and the fire.  
_Just like this._ Held it out to me. And I was afraid.

He knew. He said: _Bring yourself beside me._  
He said: _Lie with me and you will not be consumed._  
He said: _Lie with me and tomorrow we will make the world new._


	8. VIII.

On that night I lay in his arms;  
his embrace was light, but in the hands  
that burned the world to the ground, who could rest?  
Still: when I did, I dreamed of an ancient city  
rising in my bones, with rivers of blood  
that began again to flow clear. I watched  
him rise when he thought I still slept. He went  
to the door, lithe and lightly furred I saw

in the wan gray light of the morning—   
outstretched a long, subtle hand, wiped the slate  
of the sky clear, and the clouds parted, and the fires died.


	9. IX.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: blood, sexytimes.

And when I woke, he fed me bread and roses,  
offered me golden apple wine to drink,  
and, when I finished, pricked his finger  
with a diamond needle. (His blood was silver  
and smelled like honey.) He took my hand,  
said, _Be still,_ did the same. (I bled scarlet;  
it smelled of iron and salt.) And when  
he had taken my blood with his,

he reached into me with that same finger;   
he touched the place where things would grow;  
he said: _In you the ancient cities will be rebuilt._


	10. X.

Then: he cut a lock from my hair,  
and one from his, and braided them  
into a young tree. Then: he said,   
_Remember her, remember the world you loved,_   
and he caught my tears, poured them out, and  
the rivers ran clear again, as I had dreamed.   
Then: he said, _Raise up the dead. Reach down_  
_and bring up for yourself familiars and fruits._

_Look._ He lifted the ashes away.   
The young tree had already taken root.   
_What will you bring forth? Show me._


	11. XI.

In the days that followed, the tree bore fruit:  
pomegranates, avocados, peaches;  
in the days that followed, waters covered the earth  
again, and teemed with the creatures of the sea.   
In the days that followed I swelled  
like the fruits, like the seas, and brought forth  
a warm gold babe wrapped in blood red and silver.   
And in the nights between he asked to love me,

and when I said yes, the birds returned  
to the black sky. _Sing,_ he said in the morning,  
and they sang, and the world was new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh, wow, thank you if you read all the way to the end. <3


End file.
